"abc's world news tonight." what was once the boys club will see boys in the minority. top journalists will talk about the froms pekts for the second solo evening news anchor, plus the casualties and troop numbers on the rise in afghanistan. is the media ready to take another look at america's other war? cbs' lara logan joins the discussion. this hour of "state of the union," howard kirk, as always, breaks it down with his "reliable sources." she has interviewed presidents, prime ministers and michael jackson. she has been a star in the morning and in prime time, on "60 minutes and" "20/20" and "good morning america." diane sawyer is becoming an evening news anchor replacing her friend charlie gibson. he took over, leaving his longtime part nor on gma. >> good morning, america, it's

wednesday, morning 2006. >> practicing good evening. >> can you do it? can you do it? >> good evening. >> and they pay you money for that. >> abc did pay gibson millions of dollars for that and got its money's worth. >> welcome to "world news," tonight up in flames -- >> his style helped improve the second-place broadcast, but sawyer has had the undefinable quality called star power which helped her land important interviews over the years. >> have you personally killed someone who opposed you? >> never happened. has never happened. >> did you murder your wife? no. no. and i had absolutely nothing to do with her des appearance. >> junkie pothead, that's where i've been headed, getting high to put questions of who i was out of my mind. how close did you come?

>> it leaves a gaping hole on gma. >> as everyone knows, and everyone here knows and charl set reason i came here and you came here and it is just such an honor to be part of any team he's captained any time at all, but we have a lot of mornings ahead still. joining us now to impact of sawyer's move. and rome hartman, executive producer of bbc world news america on bbc america and katie couric's first executive produce or the cbs evening news and david zurich, media critic for "the baltimore sun." after 50 years of white guys we will have two women in the network anchor chairs, of course, katie couric and diane sawyer. >> is this an important cultural moment of sorts? >> what's exciting is it doesn't feel as exciting a cultural moment as an interesting news moment, really because katie, in

a sense was the first. she was the one that got eaten by the lions because she was thrown out there as the pioneer of a change in gender in the big news chair, but actually now i think people are much more interested in a sense of what this is going say about news and the whole of gma rather than treating it as a kind of phenomenon. so that's good. that's good for women. >> the headline really is that it's not big news. >> sure. >> that we have another gender switch in broadcast network. >> david zurich, was there so much debate about katie cureec coming out of morning television and the state of walter cronkite, can anyone say diane sawyer is not fully qualified? >> no, she is so qualified it's unbelievable and she's in some ways, such a good soldier for abc news. when people talk about what will it mean for good morning america, my thought was and the folks i talked to at abc news is put yourself in westin's place, if diane sawyer wants this job

and it's clear she did want the anchor job, how would you tell her no? >> you're referring to david westin. absolutely. and once you look at, that of course, anything else is not a problem. she deserves this job. she earned it. end of discussion. i have no qualms. >> she was interested in the job before twice and -- >> and basically stepped aside for her friend charlie. >> absolutely. rome hartman, you've been through this with katie. will sawyer face a roque transition from the free-wheeling two-hour morning show where you do this stuff that is a 22-minute scripted newscast. >> i was watching your set-up piece. she's had a career like nobody else, from saddam hussein to scott peterson. you put that juxtaposition. >> there's the range. >> i think she can do everything. she has done everything, pretty nearly, every team of day, every kind of format. no. in a lot of ways the evening news is a piece of cake compared to some of what she's done. there's just not as much running room in an evening news format,

22 minutes, very much scripted. >> so is it the best use of her talents? >> well, i don't know. she's done every job that there is. this is the capstone of an amazing career. >> on that point, tina brown, if diane sawyer, there seems to be a consensus. she's done everything and clearly earned this, but she's also a celeb ret, does it help her with why one people prefer one anchor or another? >> absolutely. diane's star power is becoming almost unique in the tv moment people because her stardom was made at a time when there were fewer distractions for the eyeballs so it was consolidated at a time when we were all focused really on three networks and she's a great beauty. she's an incredibly accomplished woman, a great news woman and, you know, it's a pretty explosive combination almost, all those talents in one package. so that obviously has star power

and it helped secure the big ge gets. big people want to talk to big people and that help enormously in the securing of the big interview. >> so that's the secret? it's interesting, tina, judy muller was quoted in the "l.a. times" that there was one criticism of diane is that she veers into sentimentality. do you think there's validity to that? >> not really, i think diane is quite honestly, she has to play the tv game when that's required. you know, she's been in the morning slot for the last ten years and that requires a kind of warm, friendly, over the breakfast table, slightly sentimental at times. she's just a great role player. i think when the role requires something else you will see her not being that sentimental in that role. i'm pretty sure. >> we have to see an adjustment because the evening news does call for, that time slot does call for a certain sensiblet. she's entirely adaptable. >> you're reading stories about afghanistan and iran.

>> yes. okay. sentimentality, maybe that doesn't fit the male model that we've all grown up. that's an interesting point. take a moment to assess charlie gibson's three years as anchor. he came in at a tumultuous time, peter jennings died and they went to bob woodruff, badly injured in iraq. how did he do? >> i think charlie does a fantastic job. they were reeling. when he came in and took over that newscast they were reeling. he instantly brought stability and if you remember, a short time after he took over they actually started showing some ratings games. they were sinking. they were in trouble. he gave it a sort of journalistic anchor, first of all. it was a solid broadcast, and i think you wrote about his years of being a congressional correspondent giving it a washington sense immediately. i think that really helped, but most important he really

formeded foundation and you could feel abc news, world news come together and it had been reeling since jennings' death. it was a huge void and you couldn't help it and then the incredible events as you chronicled with woodruff and he really -- you know, if he did nothing in his 4 years, but his last three years they got every cent out of him. >> i hope you had a good day in all that, but the fact that sawyer will be the second female anchor, full time obviously was barbara walters and connie chung and so forth. it doesn't feel leak such a huge deal, isn't that because of katie? >> i think in many ways barbara walters and connie chung are aft risks because they were paired with men who very clearly hated them on television. >> i hate when that happens. >> and showed it on the air. katie took a lot of grief that she didn't deserve when she launched and diane will be largely spared that nonsense. >> maybe this whole debate about can women be news anchors is one

that's happily past us. tina, i want to play some tape because owe're used to certain, here's diane sawyer who worked in the nixon white house and about fief years ago she talked about that in an interview with larry king. >> i started cbs news and one of the first people i met there was dan rather and dan rather came up to me and said i didn't think you should be hired. i fought your being hirid and wanted you to hear it from me before you heard it from anybody else because i worked in the nixon administration. >> is it a sign of maturity or diversifications that republicans can work at one time in republican politics control this role? >> i just think that people have to have a life, you know? diane -- right now there's a kind of movement to say that nothing you do, you know, everything you do discall phis you from what you eventually do. i think it gave you a wonderful

insight into power and politics into how things work into presidential hopes, dreams, tragedies that really only enhanced her. as a matter of fact, the great book out to be writ sen diane sawyer. what a life she's led, and the people she's known and the places she's worked and she's got great stories tucked away and she's also got some great observations and deep wisdom and residences, i personally am a big fan of past lives. >> you have had a few. you've had too much fun as a toon aerj, you're disqualified. >> in terms of what you have done in the past, whether it's political or whether you worked in another field or pr, it used to be that the line between journal echl and other fields, coming or going was bright are. >> or that you had to wait a few years. >> and it's probably a good thing. dana perino steps down and two and a half hours later fox news comes around. >> even though i agree with

that, howie, and i do agree with that. as a critic i've always admired her working for nixon, in the sense of being that close to history and look back through the fence at the press. >> she not only worked in the white house, she stayed with clemente with his years in exile. robin roberts, solid presence for "gm america," chris cuomo, this will have a big impact. >> the people i spoke to, though, i don't know think that big a problem for abc, and i don't know if she wants it. i absolutely don't, but a couple of people at abc and a couple of people outside abc say they have elizabeth vargas and she's in primetime, she's pulled in some numbers there. her journalistic chops were good enough that they once made her co-anchor and she's faced this thing as a mom and as a high-powered performer of having to make decisions which i think the audience like about her. she could be very good, kate snow also and cuomo. >> maybe not to abc news, but

good morning america is a lot more important to disney than world news. >> because the morning shows make more money. >> last question to tina. brian williams remains number one at "nbc nightly news." do you think diane not just with her presence, experience and star power, she could make a run at becoming number one? >> i really think she could. diane is a very kind of gifted show runner is the truth. you know, she really does micromanage pretty much every aspect of her broadcasts, always has. so i think she'll bring a lot of imagination and a lot of insight and a lot of interesting thoughts and notions, really to how the broadcast can be really revved up. i think you will see a tough competition now in that slot. i think it's exciting. >> we'll wait until she starts in january and then you can all come back and take your potshots. tina brown, rome hartman, david zurich, thank you very much for joining us. >> thank you. when we come back, embedded in afghanistan, cbs' lara logan on reporting in the dangerous

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the forgotten war, overshadowed for years by hotter, sexier stories and declining public interest is making a media comeback with 68,000 u.s. troops being sent to afghanistan, rising casualty rate and the top military commander describing the situation as serious, the afghan war is becoming harder for journalists to ignore even though few news organizations have ponied up to send correspondents to kabul. it's an expensive and dangerous assignment as underscored by the roadside bomb that injured cbs'

cami mccormick. the shape of the debate on the air and in the newspapers may suddenly be changing from how to subdue the taliban to whether we should be there at all, george will breaking with more conservative commentators and calling for a withdrawal. lara logan is just back from afghanistan where she traveled with u.s. soldiers who were attempting to provide security for the country's elections. >> the polls have now closed and voting has just ended and the marines haven't found a single person in this province who actually voted. >> exactly what the marines expected. there is more rounds fire. >> cbs' news chief foreign affairs correspondent joins me now. welcome, lara logan. based on your recent trip to afghanistan and based on the spotty media reports we get back home, do most americans have a clear picture of the obstacles and the conditions that the u.s. forces face there? >> no, i don't think they do, in spite of the best efforts of a lot of journalists, the iraq war overshadowed afghanistan for so

long. right after the invasion i went back to afghanistan and lived there for a year and did stories for "60 minutes" when no one else was covering it, really. until you're there it is so hard to describe the obstacles of just the physical conditions of trying to fight a war in that country are so overwhelming. it is very hard to communicate that, even on television you can't smell it. you can't feel the dirt. you can't feel the heat. >> 47 american soldiers killed in august, the deadliest month since the afghan war began. i mentioned earlier your colleague being injured. how dangerous is it being in iraq at the peak of that conflict? >> it is more dangerous than iraq at the peak of the conflict. >> really? >> i think so. because in the years in which america's attention was turned to iraq, that taliban and al qaeda all of the breathing room they wanted. the country was awash with land mines and now it's awash with land mines and ieds and they're getting a lot of help from

across the boarders and they're very, very dangerous and very deadly weapons and it's a myth that the i.d.s and all of that technology migrated from iraq to afghanistan. >> for years, news organizations have not been terribly interested in afghanistan. i'm sure you tried to get some stories on the air and had difficulty with that. the last couple of weeks that seems to be changing. why? >> it's not just the last couple of weeks and it's the last year and it's been changing. i never had trouble getting a story on the air once i'd done it. it's doing it. it's getting there and overcoming the incredible cost of covering that story especially when you have two wars. it's changing now because, i think, with the iraq war being seen in many ways as a failure, people -- >> and winding down. >> as far as u.s. involvement. >> and winding down and the attention is prone to afghanistan and people are not so patient now. you mean to tell me it's worse now? are you kidding? why were we lied to for all these years because it was getting worse every year from

the day of the invasion we started making mistakes and once that was successful and from there we were -- >> if we were lied to why did the american media make more of that? >> well, i know a lot of journalists who tried. it's very hard to prove a lie. when commanders are telling you you don't have enough troops and no one will tell you that on camera or on the record how do you prove that that's a lie? when commanders are telling you it's not that the taliban's stronger. it's that we're more successful. all we can do is to prove that that's not the case. on friday a controversy exploded over an associated press photo of a 21-year-old marine who had just been hit in afghanistan in hellmann province where you were by rocket-propelled grenade. this is lance corporal joshua bernard of new portland, maine. defense secretary robert gates was livid. and he's not a hothead. he was livid over the ap putting out this graphic photo and gates called the president of the ap,

tom curly, and he begged him not to run the photo. the a.p. stuck by its decision and sent the picture out and let me read to you and the viewers of the letter. i cannot imagine the pain and suffering lance corporal bernard's death has caused his family. why your organization would purposefully defy the family's wishes knowing full well it would lead to more anguish is beyond me. your lack of compassion and common sense in choosing to put this image of their maimed and stricken child on the front page of multiple american newspapers is appalling. >> first of all, when you're embed with the u.s. military you sign a set of rules and those rules clearly state that if a soldier is wounded or dies from his wounds then you have to have the per megz of the family in order to publish an identifying photograph. if you're not going to obey the rules you really shouldn't sign them. on the other hand, there are judgment calls in everything that we do. we like to think that it's a purist form and the media isn't,

and the a.p. made a judgement call. i guess they felt freedom of speech was being violated. >> the director of photography said it was our journalistic duty to show the reality of the war is there however unpleasant and brutal that sometimes is. there are critics that is a the american media have sanitized that we don't see enough injuries, but on the other hand, you've got to think of the family of this 21-year-old kid. >> it's a very difficult question and one of the good things is that we can now show pictures of coffins coming back. those images that were banned for so many years. >> there was a long legal battle over that. >> that was very important though. >> are you surprised that george will and other pundits were saying let's pull out of afghanistan. afghanistan was the good war. it didn't have initially the controversy that surrounded the iraq invasion. >> i'm not surprise upon pts it's purely political and you have a democratic president and he's suddenly against the war. >> a lot of republicans

supported the war. >> sure. that was the position. >> is it hard for the american media to stay interested in a war that's dragged on now for more than eight years? >> absolutely not. what the marines and the soldiers are going through there, what the afghan people have gone through is so overwhelming. >> do the marines feel ignored that they don't -- do they feel thir fighting and in some cases dying. the marines are living without electricity, without water and food? are you kidding? they don't have any idea what the media is doing. it doesn't factor through their daily life just getting through each day is so hard that that's the challenge. >> as you say, it's hard even with the best writers and best television reporters to convey that reality. it's over 100 degrees and the conditions just sound awful. you have an-month-old baby, i just saw her opinion very cute. he looks very cute. did you have to hez tight go

into a war zone? >> i didn't hesitate, but it is very hard. it is. i mean, everything is changed and i think about not coming home, and i think about that child growing up without a mother and that's definitely the hardest thing i've ever done. >> you felt compelled to go. >> that's your job. >> i'm going back tomorrow. >> lara logan, thank you very much for sharing your reporting experience. >> anderson cooper is in afghanistan for a series of special reports that will be airing on cnn this week. coming up on the second half of "reliable sources," the whistle blower, it's been 40 years, now he says he waited to long and that other government employees should spill classified secrets when necessary. really? plus busted by the gossip cop. we'll talk with the anyway making it his business to keep the tabloids and glossy magazines honest. can this corner of journalism really be cleaned up? can i get in on that? are you a safe driver? yes. discount! do you own a home?

yes. discount! are you going to buy online? yes! discount! isn't getting discounts great? yes! there's no discount for agreeing with me. yeah, i got carried away. happens to me all the time. helping you save money -- now, that's progressive. call or click today. if you get sick, or change jobs. eight ways reform matters to you. a cap on deductibles and out-of-pocket costs. no annual or lifetime limits on coverage. preventive care. covered. pre-existing conditions. covered. no higher rates due to genlér. extended coverage for young adults. no more coverage denied if you get sick. and guaranteed renewal, even if you do. learn more today. i don't think you can live the american lifestyle without energy. we have all this energy here in the u.s. we have wind. we have solar, obviously. we have lots of oil. i think natural gas is part of the energy mix of the future.

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i'm john king and this is "state of the union." here are stories breaking this sunday morning. white house environmental adviser van jones is resigning. and for signing a petition that suggested high-level bush era officials deliberately aloud the 9/11 attacks to take place. the obama administration sources say jones didn't read that petition carefully. president obama returns from a weekend at camp david and faces a big week ahead. on tuesday he gives the controversial address to children. he tackles a big speech to the joint session on congress and on friday the president will attend a 9/11 memorial tribute at the pentagon. encouraging news from the front lines against the california wildfires. the massive station fire near los angeles is almost 50% contained. officials are offering a $100,000 reward for information

leading to the arrest of whoever caused that blaze. that and more ahead on "state of the union." he is the most famous and notorious leaker of his generation. daniel elsburg is the man who gave the top-secret pentagon papers to "the new york times," "the washington post" and other newspapers. the nixon white house went after hem during the watergate era. he broke into the psychiatrist's office in an effort to dig up dirt, and they prompted the courts to throw out the charges charges against them. elsberg is calling on others to g follow the risky course. it debuts in new york, los angeles and in the toronto film festival. >> my name has now come outsa the possible source of the times pentagon document, it is that of daniel elseburg, the top policy analyst to the defense and state department.

>> think it is time in this country to quit making national heroes out of those who steal secrets and publish them in the newspaper. >> wouldio you go to prison? >> i spoke to him earlier from the university of california at berkeley. >> daniel ellesburg, welcome. >> good to be here. >> people either revere you or revile you for your role in leaking the pentagon papers in 1971, but you say you should have started leaking in 1964 after lbj's incident was trumped up incident that led to our involvement in vietnam. >> yes. that took place on my first day and night in the pentagon, august 4, 1964, and i knew by the end of that night that the president and my boss, secretary of defense mcnamara were lying in many different respect, not just one single lie, but a whole series of lie which is led to

the resolution by congress and later and later led us to 11 years of war. so i wish very much that i had exposed those lies to congress with document as early as that. >> in fact, you were pretty hard on yourself in "harper's magazine" article. you said any one of a hundred official, some of whom fore saw the whole qaa taft ravi, that of course, being vietnam, could have told the hidden truth to congress with documents. instead our silence made us all accomplices in the ensuing slaughter. so you feel some guilt for not speaking out earlier? >> well, i understand why i didn't. it didn't even occur to me. i thought if i thought about it and rejected it i would feel even worse about it, but i don't have myself off the hook on that. why didn't i think about it until much later? it took really getting into the war to make me realize that there was a better way of upholding my oath to the constitution than by keeping my mouth shut to congress.

yes. many of us could have done that and it made us all complicit. >> these days you could have posted the secret documents on the internet, but at that time the only way was to go to the press or you went to the new york times and later the washington post and other newspapers, but one of the reasons you might have had second, third and fourth thoughts it seems to me you might well have gone to prison. >> i expected to go to prison when i did go to the times. earlier i went to the senate and without pressure from the press of making it an issue the senate just didn't -- senator fullbright, chairman of the foreign relations committee, he wasn't facing a legal risk, but political risk of crossing the pentagon and the executive branch by putting those documents out himself. when i went to the press i assumed i was breaking a law. i was not, in fact, by any prior precedent, but i assumed i was and with 7,000 pages of top-secret documents that i was putting out, i thought i would go to prison for the rest of my life. >> in 2006, for people who have

not followed it, one of the reasons you didn't go to prison is because of misconduct on the government's part and the investigation of you by the nixon white house of breaking into your psychiatrist's office. you called on bush administration officials to leak what you called the secret war plans against iran. obviously, the war's u.s. military move against iran. were you wrong about that? >> well, i would like very much to know and people who did expose very important leaks which i think may have prevented that horrible war would have been even more serious and more dangerous than the iraq war. i think that the expose by hirsch by sources in the pentagon and the white house and by philip geraldi and others that those plans existed that vice president chain he asked for plans against iran including possible use of nuclear weapons and he was continuously pressing for that until virtually the end

of the administration. i think those disclosures may have been among the most significant in history, more than the pentagon papers in preventing that war. if there were other reasons, i'd like to know them. that's a story the press should be looking into. why was there not any attack or were the sources to hirsch and geraldi wrong? i doubt that. >> let's have a reporter discussion. as a reporter, i love leaks, but how can a government funk if it can't maintain secrets? >> well, governments will always maintain secrets and they'll always maintain excessive secrecy, so we don't have to worry about government being conducted in a goldfish bowl. career empulses and loyalty to one's boss will keep people from revealing secrets that shea should in many cases. >> but you're saying that a bureaucrat can undermine the president because he or she happens to disagree with a policy. what if an obama administration official leaked information about say, diplomatic outreach effort toward iran and that it

sunked the whole initiative. in other words, it was something that person didn't like or didn't agree with? >> i think you're pressing me in effect to say there should be no secrets. i don't believe that at all. of course there should be. there are things that should be kept secret and i kept a lot of those secret for a long team. i also kept too many things secret that should never have been secret and particularly at the time. i am say that an official like myself and i'm sure there are many people in this position right now who feel congress is being, has been or is being deceived in various ways and the constitution violated and they are violating their own oaths to defend the constitution by keeping those secrets. they do have an obligation, i think, to obey the oath, not to obey their careerist motives and that does apply to the obama administration. with all his talk of transparency, obama needs as much pressure from the press as any administration before that. we haven't seen much action on transparency in many respects.

we could get concrete about that. >> do you think that the obama administration is getting as much pressure from the press as it should, particularly compared to previous administrations, say the bush administration? >> none. no administration has gotten the pressure that it should have the press on this point. we got into iraq with as much deception as occurred in vietnam a generation earlier. a performance by the press no better than we saw of pressing behind the lies of the administration than we got during the johnson administration when i was in. nor did we get a single person within the administration, the bush administration now who saw that the adventure into iraq was going to hurt our counter-terrorism efforts and hurt our security and was violating the constitution in terms of treaties, another example would be treaties on torture and our domestic laws on torture. people who saw that clearly, not one of them leaked to congress or to the press. >> obviously, there were conflicting opinions and

conflicting evidence on wmds and let me come back to this. >> go ahead. when it came to lying about the nature of the evidence that the evidence was unequivocal, that was as much of a lie as saying that evidence of the attack on august 4th on our destroyers was unequivocal. >> you're comparing the bush administration's building of the case to go to war with iraq with lyndon johnson's incident, just to be clear. >> i am indeed. it's exactly the same in the performance not only by the president, but by all of the people who knew that it was a disaster and i could name names, if you want. >> let me -- we're short on time. let me take you back to this incredible period in american history when you were targeted by the nixon white house as i mentioned earlier. your psychiatrispsychiatrist's broke into to dig up dirt and on the white house tapes president neckson said just get everything out, leak it out, i want to destroy him in the press. is that clear?

who would like to be on the receiving end of that kind of campaign from the president of the united states. >> of course, joe wilson and his wife valerie plame were in exactly the receiving end of the same kind of operation from rove and others in the administration of cheney, scooter libby and others. i felt very familiar with that one. get that guy, destroy his credibility because joe wilson, former ambassador had been telling the truth just as i told the truth with documents. the lesson that i think is there right now in the obama administration and any later administration is if you, in the government, believe that your oath to uphold the constitution is being violated by lies, by reckless adventures abroad, you should consider doing what i wish i had done in '64 and '65. don't do what i did, wait until the war has started and the bombs have fallen. do what i wish i had done earlier, go to the press and to congress, not just congress with documents even though that may risk going to prison.

>> let me ask you a last question here. the new york times as you know, won a pulitzer prize for exposing the bush administration's secret domestic surveillance program and dick cheney denounced the paper for doing that. critics say the journalists who received and published classified information are every bit as morally culpable than the daniel ellsburg's of the world who actually leaked the material. >> if you think it was culpable, by the way, people who do that unless it involves communication intelligence or the identity of covert op rat ofs as in the case of valerie plame are not actually breaking the law of a moral precedent. >> what about morally? >> morally i would say they are very complicit in not putting out that information when they understand that lives depend on their revealing it. and i feel i was culpable earlier and that those who have led to so many deaths, iraqi and american in iraq by not risking their careers are morally

culpable for that. you have to make your choice. you have to make your decision as to where morality lies. >> >> daniel, ellsberg, thank you very much for joining us. >> thank you. after the break, policing a paparazzi press. a new fact check with celebrity goss gossip. do people want someone spoiling the fun? the fun? the gossip cop is next.

civilization, but the explosion of outlets, people, us, intouch, access hollywood, entertainment tonight, extra, tmz and gossipy columns at avirtually every newspaper and magazine. media watch dogs are busy tracking political lies and now comes a new web seat, gossip cop.com dedicated to -- is this something the world desperately needs? the site was founded by nbc's dan abrams and he spoke to the

chief cop michael luitis. welcome. >> thank you so much for having me. >> with the problems facing the world you're spending your time to policing bad gossip. >> certainly there are a lot of problems in the world and there are readings of blogs and magazine and people who watch entertainment shows because they want to hear about the celebrities but they're entitled as everyone else, to know the truth. >> sometimes you get denials from pr people for the celebrities, but don't some of the publicists, lie for their clients. >> that's why we call all of the parties involved if there's a question about someone working on a movie, we try to find people on the set and we also have a thermometer that measures whether a story is real or whether it's a rumor. we listen to all of the evidence and we make a decision based on that. >> let me run through a few quick examples that you reported on gossip cop.

"intouch" magazine reported that tom cruise and katie holmes were fighting in a shocking display of public anger. who really knows? maybe they were fighting and they don't want to own up to it. >> there were people on the set and there were certainly photographers who follow every move that katie holmes and tom cruise make and those photographers really never caught them fighting. those photographers found them sitting in a park relaxing and maybe they weren't smiling as if they were elated, but they certainly weren't angry. so we reached out to everyone and we found out there was no such fight. >> you took on "star" magazine that jessica simpson had reportedly been paid seven figures to write a tell-all book about her boyfriend. >> complete nonsense. she has no desire to write about her past relationships and certainly she's not going to expose this to the world for what was deemed a $5 million pay

kay. >> you challenged perez hilton, the gossip blogger for reporting that michael phelps the olympic champion was to blame for a car crash that he was involved in. >> perez in big letters wrote that it was michael phelps who caused the crash and of course, the baltimore police said he did not. it was the honda that caused the crash. people like perez hilton and some of these other bloggers, they prefer to be outrageous more than they are to be accurate. >> that leads me to the next question of news journalists and political beaters is hardly unblemished, but given what you're compiling, why there are so many mistakes and exaggerations and untruths in this area of reporting about celebs? >> there are a couple of reasons. people would rather hear a more scandalous story about a celebrity rather than a more boring story about their existence. >> a lot of these blogs are written by people who just want to have a salacious tore and they post it right away and they don't fact check and that's

where gossip cop.com is very different. we fact check on the journalists. yves been in the business for 15 years. i know to call all of the sides and to call all of the sources rather than post a story without checking it. >> it's not just bloggers. you're taking on established magazines and television shows, but what about this argument that people kind of enjoy wallowing in this stuff and they don't particularly care whether every detail is true? >> you know, one could argue that and it is entertainment and it is the entertainment industry, but at the end of day people want to know the truth and if in just judging from the comments you get from the site people are happy to see the other stories and then they come to gossip cop to fiend out if it really happened that way. it's probably good for your traffic. you worked at "access hollywood," "us weekly," "the new york post." are you like a reformed alcoholic. >> i'm a reformed muck raker. >> you sound like a careful reporter, but you certainly are

no stranger to the gossip industry, shall we say? >> well, you know, at the time that i was at the daily news from the beginning my editor told me a tip is just a tip, it's the tip of the iceberg and the tip of the story and you need to call everyone and you need to check your sources and you need to call both sides and if it pans out, it pans out. if it doesn't, it's a bad tip. >> how unhappy are the gossip magazines and the gossip bloggers and gossip shows with what you're posting? are you experiencing any pushback or feeling the heat from your targets? >> i haven't felt the heat, but they are feeling the heat and they're uncomfortable with the fact that i'm checking up them, that they can't post whatever they want, that there is someone out there who is watching them. >> the fact that you knocked down some of these stories does that prompt these organizations to retract, correct or are they basically ignoring you? >> no. some of them, even the biggest out'lls who put up big stories without fact checking them have pulled down those stories and then have said or attributed to

the fact that gossip cop had the right story. >> all right. patrolling the gossip beat. thanks very much. >> thank you. still to come, the pentagon rethinks its policy of barring war correspondent, based on negative stories. "vanity fair" pays levi johnson for his sleazy so-called revelations about sarah palin and could spider-man, the hulk have an impact on abc news under disney's latest megadeal? our media minute straight ahead.

. as we reported last week the pentagon initially denied that it was rejecting reporters who want to travel with u.s. forces in afghanistan based on a private contractors' reviews of their work. those denials didn't last long. soon the pentagon admitted that, yes, these background checks by the rendon group which rated journalist stories as positive, negative or neutral were a factor in turning down two reporters who wanted to become embeds. well, hours after we went off the air the military announced that it was canceling its contract with the controversial rendon group. gregory smith in afghanistan told stars and stripes this rendon's work had become a distraction from our main mission. >> it was a distraction because the pentagon could not defend the practice of seeming to exclude journalists whose work officials perceived as negative and why were taxpayer dollars wasted on media reviews anyway? >> "vanity fair" scored a great

scoop this week with a piece by levi johnston, right? >> the father of sarah palin's grandchild speak out about life inside the palin home and the picture he paints isn't exactly the same the former governor has promoted. >> sarah palin does not like the publicity she's getting today. the father of her grandchild, levi johnston is talking about what he claims he saw in the pail en household. >> after all, bristol palin's ex-boyfriend dishes all kinds of inside dirt about her mother. sarah palin didn't do any cooking. she watched daytime tv, found the governor's job too hard and wanted to make far more money. she thought of claiming that bristol's baby was her own. she didn't sleep in the same bedroom as her husband todd and there was talk of divorce. >> pretty hot stuff, huh? >> this is a quality magazine paying a high school dropout whose only conceivable credential is that he knocked up a governor's daughter who has been called a liar by sarah palin and engaging in payback by

trashing the family. this is supposed to be what? journalism. i felt like taking a shower after yards. >> don imus is leaving for a new television home. he doesn't have much to do with business, but his show will be simulcast by the fox business network. that can hurt the fledgling channel which is averaging just 21,000 viewers. >> mr. imus! mr. imus. >> i was an early marvel comics fan. i even had a letter by the editor prefrnted, my very first published words, unlike superman, they were kind of neurotic. >> so i was amazed at disney this week paid $4 billion for marvel and the right to the hulk, fantastic four, x-men and the gang. now, i don't really think this will have a huge impact on abc news although ironman would come in handy during those breaking news events where you have to stay on the air all day and who could argue with captain america as a sunday talk show host?

no one's going to attack that guy's patriotism. if abc can co-exist with the company whose symbol is mickey mouse, it's not going to be harmed by the likes of dr. doom. still, $4 billion, unreal. mom,y told you not to throw out those comic books. that does it for this edition of "reliable sources." i'm howard kurtz. john king is back with more "state of the union" just ahead.